However, Schneier, chief security technology officer for telecommunications firm BT in London, told the meeting that this will cause more problems than it solves. Troublemakers, like computer hackers, are unlikely to trawl the internet looking for random scientific files to hack into.

“If no one knows about it, it’s safe,” he says. “If you announce that you have sensitive information by putting out a redacted paper, then if someone wants to know, they will. Any computer can be hacked.”

Schneier emphasised that he was not just talking about the scientific paper itself being hacked, but all the data and experimental notes that are kept electronically in labs.